"Only a very bad theologian would confuse the certainty that follows revelation with the truths that are revealed. They are entirely different things"
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Revelation, Diderot implies, is less dangerous for what it claims than for what it produces: a mood of certainty that people mistake for knowledge. The jab is aimed at theology’s oldest rhetorical sleight of hand - swapping an internal sensation (the calm, welded conviction of being chosen, spoken to, illuminated) for an external guarantee (that the content of the message is true). A “very bad theologian” isn’t someone who doubts revelation; it’s someone sloppy enough to confuse the psychological afterglow with the proposition itself.
That distinction lands with Enlightenment force. Diderot lived in a France where Church authority didn’t just police metaphysics; it organized social life, law, publishing, and reputations. As the Encyclopedie’s editor, he watched how institutions laundered belief into fact: conviction becomes permission, permission becomes power. The line is a scalpel: it doesn’t deny that people experience revelation, it denies that the experience comes with its own certificate of authenticity.
The subtext is almost modern: certainty is a feeling, not a test. Diderot is puncturing the prestige of “I am sure” when “sure” is generated by submission, repetition, or communal reinforcement. It’s also a quiet warning about epistemic shortcuts: once certainty is treated as evidence, argument is over before it starts. Theology, at its best, should separate the force of belief from the claim being believed. At its worst, it rides that force to foreclose inquiry - which is exactly the kind of intellectual monopoly Diderot spent a career trying to break.
That distinction lands with Enlightenment force. Diderot lived in a France where Church authority didn’t just police metaphysics; it organized social life, law, publishing, and reputations. As the Encyclopedie’s editor, he watched how institutions laundered belief into fact: conviction becomes permission, permission becomes power. The line is a scalpel: it doesn’t deny that people experience revelation, it denies that the experience comes with its own certificate of authenticity.
The subtext is almost modern: certainty is a feeling, not a test. Diderot is puncturing the prestige of “I am sure” when “sure” is generated by submission, repetition, or communal reinforcement. It’s also a quiet warning about epistemic shortcuts: once certainty is treated as evidence, argument is over before it starts. Theology, at its best, should separate the force of belief from the claim being believed. At its worst, it rides that force to foreclose inquiry - which is exactly the kind of intellectual monopoly Diderot spent a career trying to break.
Quote Details
| Topic | Truth |
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